In the temples we find that the later deities introduced into the Buddhist pantheon are here also welcome, and that the triads or groups of three precious ones, the "Buddhist trinity," so-called,[26] are surrounded by gods of Chinese or Japanese origin. The Zen sect, according to its professions and early history, ought to be indifferent to worldly honors and emoluments, and indeed many of its devotees are. Its history, however, shows how poorly mortals live up to their principles and practise what they preach. Furthermore, these professors of peace and of the joys of the inner life in the Sō-tō or sub-sect have made the twenty-fifth and twenty-sixth years of Meiji, or A.D. 1893 and 1894, famous and themselves infamous by their long-continued and scandalous intestine quarrels. Of the three sub-sects, those called Rin-zai and Sō-tō, take their names from Chinese monks of the ninth century; while the third, O-baku, founded in Japan in the seventeenth century, is one of the latest importations of Chinese Buddhistic thought in the Land of the Rising Sun. Japanese authors usually classify the first six denominations at which we have glanced, some of which are phases of thought rather than organizations, as "the ancient sects." Ten-dai and Shin-gon are "the medieval sects." The remaining four, of which we shall now treat, and which are more particularly Japanese in spirit and development, are "the modern sects." CHAPTER IX - THE BUDDHISM OF THE JAPANESE "A drop of spray cast by the infinite I hung an instant there, and threw my ray To make the rainbow. A microcosm I Reflecting all. Then back I fell again, And though I perished not, I was no more."-- The Pantheist's Epitaph. "Buddhism is essentially a religion of compromise." "Where Christianity has One Lord, Buddhism has a dozen." "I think I may safely challenge the Buddhist priesthood to give a plain historical account of the Life of Amida, Kwannon, Dainichi, or any other Mahāyāna Buddha, without being in serious danger of forfeiting my stakes." "Christianity openly puts this Absolute Unconditioned Essence in the forefront of its teaching. In Buddhism this absolute existence is only put forward, when the logic of circumstances compels its teachers to have recourse to it."--A. Lloyd, in The Higher Buddhism in the Light of the Nicene creed. "Now these six characters, 'Na-mu-A-mi-da-Butsu,' Zend-ō has explained as follows: 'Namn' means [our] following His behest--and also [His] uttering the Prayer and bestowing [merit] upon us. 'Amida Butsu' is the practice of this, consequently by this means a certainty of salvation is attained."